2.10 | Calling Hell Home
"I don't know where you're going,
but do you got room for one more troubled soul?
I don't know where I'm going,
but I don't think I'm coming home."
Alone Together - Fall Out Boy
THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN the east and west segments of Neverland wasn't anything special - in fact, if it weren't dark and if Adi hadn't been looking at the ground, she would have walked right through it.
Spanning what looked like infinitely from both sides, glimmering, transparent, hovering half a foot off the ground, was an electric blue line - in both senses of the word. She got the sense if she bent down and put her ear right next to it, it would emit a tinny, high-pitched tune, like electricity.
Without any air of ceremony or importance, Adi stepped over it.
She wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but absolutely nothing happened. No strong gust of wind or voices yelling or chill settling down her back. Just her on one side and everything she had come to call home on the other. Something heavy dropped in her stomach, but she turned around.
It was behind her now, physically and metaphorically.
The jungle around Adi looked almost exactly the same as before. Still, she felt different. Empty, like the smallest wind would knock her over. It didn't help that the darkness barred her complete use of vision; her only source of light was the hazy moon above.
Then it occurred to her that she didn't have to move alone in darkness. Adi conjured a pod of flames in her free hand and held it out in front of her, careful to avoid any stray branches and leaves. Although she wasn't in the best of moods, she didn't care to deal with a forest fire any time soon.
A humid breeze washed over her. Considering how used she was to the island's climate, it struck her as odd that it sent her senses on high alert – until she realized it wasn't the wind that was setting her on edge: it was the slow crackle of sticks emanating from her right.
The fire extinguished as she went for the dagger in her waistband and held it close to her with baited breath. Perhaps it was only one of the boys, upset she hadn't said goodbye. Perhaps it was something else - something far worse - that was the reason why Pan and the boys kept east.
A moment of utter silence. Adi swallowed, sure the noise carried so far anyone in a mile radius could hear it. And then a figure came into view at the same time a surprised, definitely female, accented voice asked, "You're a girl?"
Adi dropped her knife to her side and immediately scolded herself after. Femininity didn't equal safety, especially not here. "Excellent observation."
Even in the dim light, the woman had distinguishable features: decidedly feminine, blonde hair piled atop her head, willowy figure, upturned nose, clothed in a tattered green dress and dark leggings. Mid-twenties, maybe; in Neverland terms, old. She walked with poised grace, as if the ground was fragile glass. In her shaking hand was a short silver dagger.
"Who are you?" Unlike Adi, she didn't seem to think femininity equaled security, because she pointed the wavering blade right at Adi's stomach with renewed determination. "What are you doing here?"
Holding up her hands to reveal her empty left and arrow-free bow in her right, Adi said, "My name's Adi. Well, Fallon, depending on who you ask."
The woman blinked. Her eyes were pale green, a few shades lighter than Pan's. "Fallon? As in Jones?"
Adi studied her warily. Name recognition was either really good or really bad, and she didn't have enough time to decide which. "Depends who's asking."
Seeming to realize she was holding her at knife point, the woman lowered the dagger. "My name's Tinkerbell. I knew your brother, Killian, when he lived here."
"He lived here?"
"For a time, yes," Tinkerbell said carefully. "He said you were missing, and he was trying to buy time to find you. Something about revenge on an alligator?"
"Crocodile," Adi spat as she shook her head. "Sounds just like him."
"He told me a lot about you, but that doesn't explain why you're here now with a different name."
She paused. There was no reason why she shouldn't trust Tinkerbell, but there wasn't any reason why she should. It was a fifty-fifty shot, and Adi hadn't been having the best luck lately.
Tinkerbell noticed her hesitation. "I get it. You don't trust me yet. But could you at least tell me if you know who else is on this island? Do you know what exactly you're getting yourself into?"
"Believe me," Adi shook her head, a faint, hopeless smile on her lips. "I've already found out. I think Pan might be the worst person I've ever met."
She half expected the boy to pull a Voldemort and taboo his name, but when he didn't appear at her voice, she figured she was safe.
"Yet you're still saying his name with a touch of reverence," the blonde pointed out warily.
"No, I'm not!" she said indignantly, but stopped at the look Tinkerbell shot her. "Well, he did teach me how to use my magic. And how to fight. As irritating as he is, I owe a lot to him."
Tinkerbell pursed her lips as she looked over the teenager once more. "I think I can help you. Follow me. If you trust me enough." She started into the woods, not looking back over her shoulder.
Adi had half a mind to let her go. But as she began to disappear between the darkness, she made a split-second decision to follow.
Cloaked in shadow, they walked in silence. Quiet hung above them, shattered only by a strange, faint ringing noise that sounded a lot like the bells from Polar Express. Adi looked around for the source, puzzled until her eyes landed on Tinkerbell. Her dangly, bell-shaped earrings swung with each step she took - how ironic. Tink had bells.
Finally, Tinkerbell stopped short in front of a wooden structure built up in a small clearing where some of the trees gave way to the sky above and illuminated the ground at their feet.
The structure was surprisingly similar to Pan's tree houses, only Tink's was made of lighter wood, more airy and open. There was door, just a cutout to enter in through the ladder.
Adi moved through the entrance to survey the inside: no personal decorations, no identifiers. A low bed in the corner and a table in the other, which was scattered with knives and books alike.
"How long have you been here?"
"Time is different. I'm not really sure, but it's been quite a while." Tinkerbell shrugged, taking a seat at the table and motioning for Adi to join her. "Once I wasn't a fairy anymore, I had to come somewhere with enough magic to make it feel like I still was. Even this magic is running out, too."
Adi blinked. "You're not a fairy? But in all the stories..."
"I'm a tiny pixie who can't talk? That's all wrong. I'm a lot louder and more pessimistic than that thing. Besides, even when I was a fairy, I was nothing like that stupid cartoon."
"Pan isn't either." Adi paused to trace her fingers along the warbled wood of the table, picturing the fun-loving kid in green tights and a hat. Part of her imagined Pan in said green tights and hat. It was a mistake. "What do you mean, the magic's running out?"
Tink tilted her head to the side slightly, resting her chin on her palm and her elbow on the table. "Everything ends in time. Have you ever seen Pan fly?" When Adi shook her head, she continued, "No. That's because the magic that grows the pixie dust to make you fly doesn't work anymore. Slowly and steadily, the magic is...dying. And it's going to take the island with it. That's what I've been told, at least."
"Is there any way to stop it?"
"There is, but I don't know what yet. Pan won't tell me until it gets closer."
Adi chewed on her bottom lip. "He was training me for something. Wouldn't tell me what, but it was something important - something big. Too bad I'm not around to find out."
The ex-fairy leaned closer to the archer with an odd expression on her face: something caught between confusion and incredulity. "Adi, Pan's still going to need you regardless of if you're willing or not. Once he decides he needs you, he will not give up."
"I know," Adi said matter-of-factly as she abruptly stood and picked up her bow from where she had leaned it against the table leg. "But neither will I. Pan can call me his all he wants, but it doesn't mean anything. I belong to myself."
It hurt to think that Pan saw her mainly as an object, a tool, a weapon. His weapon that he had slowly been fine tuning to work perfectly for his grip. What he hadn't counted on was said weapon being able to think for herself and choosing to run away. What was even more shocking was that he had let her.
"Of course you belong to yourself. People can't own other people."
Yes. They can. He convinced himself that he owned me, even when I told him again and again that I didn't, so I had to leave. I had to freaking leave before he completely took over and I hate to say it but he terrifies me now that I actually think about it. Peter Pan scares me. There, I said it.
Tink opened her mouth to say something else, but Adi didn't let her start.
"Look, Tinkerbell, I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me all this, and I appreciate you bringing me here, but there's something I need to do."
The calm tone she said it with surprised even her, because her heart was beating faster than she had ever felt it before.
Fully aware of Tinkerbell's startled gaze on her back, Adi chose to ignore it as she climbed down the ladder and half-sprinted through the jungle. Her breath came out in short, heavy pants while stray branches cut across her skin, leaving jagged scratches across her cheeks and bare arms.
Adi stumbled through the edge of the trees and tripped until her feet met sand, cold in the absence of the sun and stretching forever in both directions. Above the trees to her right, marring the now perfectly clear midnight sky, was a thick column of smoke that reached all the way up to the stars.
Tilting her head back, she desperately searched for a constellation she recognized. She came up empty-handed. Not even the stars were her friend here. All she had was a hopeless ex-fairy and the heaviness in the pit of her stomach.
For a reason she had yet to understand, her insides ached the longer she looked up at the smoke and the unfamiliar heavens. Her throat felt thick; she was glad no one was here to talk to her, because she was afraid her voice might break.
This wasn't healthy. These people shouldn't be making her feel this upset, especially when the ringleader, the one who called every single shot, was the reason she had left in the first place.
But he was also the reason she had come, too. Peter Pan was a paradox, a terrifyingly enticing oxymoron that begged her to step closer and go running in the other direction at the same time.
He was a slippery slope - once she had taken the first step, she had gone tumbling. And it was one hell of a long way down.
She needed him gone.
Adi waved her hand and conjured a pile of kindling and sticks in front of her on the sand and set it alight in another motion. The heat warmed her icy skin to an uncomfortable degree but she didn't move back. Just watched as the flames devoured the wood.
Without taking a pause to second guess herself, Adi dropped her bow into the fire. It licked hungrily at the polished weapon and charred the beautiful chestnut a deep charcoal. Her quiver and carefully crafted arrows went next. Adi watched the blaze claim them as its own.
Vaguely, she wondered why she was crying.
Adi ripped the short cloak-like shirt the boys all wore off next and threw it in the fire, watching in only her bra and Converse and pants as her possessions turned to ash.
She took a deep, rattling breath and closed her eyes so she could wipe the tears from under them. Her face felt raw and hot even in the night's chill.
Then Adi conjured a new set of clothes on her body: gray leggings, a loose blue top covered by a leather jacket. She left her shoes on - the only thing she still had from Storybrooke.
The knife in her belt had switched to her pocket; she took it out and studied it. With her other hand, she yanked the tie from her hair so it tumbled around her shoulders, and then gripped a chunk of it with determination.
A shaking inhale, a steady exhale, the raise of the knife toward her face; Adi sliced her long hair to her shoulders, all the way around, blindly, so she was positive it looked messy and uneven. She couldn't bring herself to care, not when her shoulders suddenly felt a thousand times lighter and she felt like she could breathe again.
The breeze helped the flames sputter out until even the glowing embers went out and she was left standing beneath an unfamiliar sky in front of a circle of the cinders of who she used to be.
Not Fallon Jones. Not Adeline. Just Adi.
Who knows, Adi thought as she turned to study the ebony blanket of sea the spanned out forever in every direction, how to survive. How to belong in a place that clearly doesn't want her.
The stars glittered in warbled pinpricks against the endless mass of ocean before her. The constellations from home, the only things that belonged to her, were no longer hers to claim.
That was okay. She could make new ones. At least, that's what she told herself as she began the trip back to Tink's place. Already, she was beginning to remember the western forest.
In psychology class, Adi learned something called the adaptation level phenomenon: the idea that no matter what, people adjust and - whatever the circumstances - return to their baseline level of happiness.
So by that theory, the best things become normal, the worst become regular, and even hell becomes home.
"What happened to you?"
That was the first thing Tink said when Adi got back, and the reason she finally decided to trust the ex-fairy.
Now that she felt like the weight of a thousand bricks had been burned alongside her bow, she was able to appreciate the blunt concern the woman had for her, despite them meeting less than two hours ago. Any of the boys would either have left her alone or made her feel like she was drowning.
Tinkerbell, however, barely glanced up from her place at the table at the sound of Adi's shoes against her floor; nor did she even look at the teenager until she slid into the char opposite her.
"I needed a change," she replied, stoic. The panic from earlier had disappeared and was slowly being replaced by a gnawing bitterness at the edge of her spinal cord. Not toward her companion, but the situation in general. She could push it away for the time being.
There was a pause in which Tink surveyed her once more, nodding. "Yeah. It suits you."
Adi ran a hand through the front of her newly cropped hair, watching as Tinkerbell tinkered with a few spare bits and pieces of what looked like a rusty knife and a few pieces of old scrap metal. Her hands, moving with surprising agility, suddenly paused as the fairy looked up with an eyebrow raised.
"Something you need? You're making me nervous."
"I'm trying to figure out how to tell you everything that's happened to me without taking an entire day to do it," she said. "I mean, from what I can tell, it's only been about three months, but a lot of crap has happened."
Tink set down her things and folded her hands on the table. "How about this: I'll go first."
"Sounds like a deal."
It seemed that between Adi nearly breaking down in front of Tink and her returning with a stoically calm demeanor, the two had come to a consensus to trust each other. However unspoken it was, it was enough for Adi to come back and start talking.
"I used to live in the Enchanted Forest, working under the Blue Fairy with a bunch of others just like me. Wings, colorful dresses, nicely pinned hair, all of it. Everyone was the perfect image of what a fairy should be - except for me. I wanted to actually help people instead of simply doing what I was told and nothing else. So I would sneak out. One night, I came across a woman seconds away from dying, and I saved her life. Not my orders, but I had helped someone. Her name was Regina."
"Regina?" Adi interrupted, choking on her own spit in an extremely unladylike manner. "As in, Queen Regina?"
"The same." Tink nodded gravely before continuing. "Regina wasn't at a very good point in her life, so I offered to help her find her true love, which would grant her happiness. I tried to get her the dust, but Blue said no and told me to stay with her while I learned how to behave properly. It didn't really work, because I snuck out again and stole some dust."
"What exactly does the dust do?"
"When you spread it over a certain area, it becomes like a trail for you to follow that leads you to a single person. No one else can see it but the one who laid the dust. Ours led Regina to a tavern, where she found a man with a tattoo of a lion. I left. And when I visited her later that night, I found out she had been too scared to go in to meet him. I had stolen that pixie dust for nothing, and when I left, Blue found me. She started yelling at me for being disobedient - she took away my wings for trying to be a good fairy. At least now I can try to be a good person."
Adi struggled to find something to say, but came up empty. The words stuck in the back of her throat like smoke.
Tinkerbell seemed unaffected by this. If anything, her voice had only gotten flatter during the course of her story. "Your turn."
"Right, yeah. Did Killian tell you what happened to me before I was taken? Or should I start with Neverland?"
"All he said was that the Queen took you and he never saw you again."
"The Queen recruited me to kill Snow White. When I couldn't do it, she imprisoned me. I was there until she cast a curse that wiped all of our memories and sent us to the Land without Magic under the false idea that we had been living in a place called Storybrooke our whole lives. That's where my name turned from Fallon to Adi. On my seventeenth birthday, I found a coin that brought me here..."
Telling Tink everything that had happened to her wasn't as difficult as she had first thought. As the words twisted and weaved around them, Adi realized how different she now was from the person she had been in Storybrooke.
When Adi concluded with her walking away from everythinh she had come to know, she let out a deep sigh and leaned back in her chair. She felt lighter than before, but it had transcended to an almost empty feeling in her stomach. Light was good. Empty, however, was not.
"You're strong," Tink observed after a few moments of silence.
Adi shook her head. "I'm not. I know how to make it look like I am - that's the difference."
"No," the blonde argued. "You might not realize it, but you are. Not many people can get back up after being knocked down so many times, and even less could walk away the way you did. That's why I like you." There was no time for Adi to argue, because she kept speaking while she fished around in a bag by her feet. "Here. This is for you." Tink slid a crumpled piece of paper across the table.
Raising an eyebrow, Adi unfurled it. It was a near exact replica of the map Slightly had given her, only with the eastern half blotted out in a mess of splattered black ink. Not many landmarks were labeled, save for home, cliff, echo caves, and dead man's peak.
"Thank you," Adi said, studying it once more before putting it in her pocket. Now she had the complete set.
It was exactly like Slightly's map.
Adi realized that was her problem: she was comparing everything to what had been, what used to be, what was. To move forward, she needed to let go of them and get rid of this pit of hollow anger inside of her.
While she had been thinking this, Tink had pulled her items back toward her and started working again, but Adi wasn't finished.
"You labeled it home. Is that an invitation?"
Tink didn't look up. "It's whatever you need it to be."
Adi stood and pushed in her chair, suddenly smiling and breathless. "Thanks. Again."
There was no room for a reply, because she had already rushed out into the cool night alone. Again. Day would probably be breaking soon, but there was enough time for her to do what she needed to. Half of her wanted to visit the Echo Caves, but the other half told her to wait. There would be plenty of time for that, and she didn't need to be pulled at the seams any harder than she already was.
Besides, everything would be related to them, the exact people she was trying to rid herself of.
Once Adi felt she was far enough away from Tink's place, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and squared her shoulders. Directly in front of her was a towering tree that arched gracefully into the night above, its branches interwoven with those around it.
Steadiness was key. One slip and the whole freaking island would go up in flames, and though Adi was in a bad mood, setting a forest fire was not on her radar.
Gently, as if they were simply a part of the breeze, sparks bloomed from her fingertips and conjoined with the wind, feather light and blazing hot. They rose higher and higher with controlled elegance. For a moment, they looked beautiful; and then they connected with the leaves and set the whole thing aflame.
Adi exhaled deeply and gritted her teeth. Controlling this meant she had control over everything else, meant she was the master of that empty feeling, not the other way around. She had to do this - and not just because failure would burn everyone on Neverland alive.
The fire flared up into the still night, consuming the branches and leaves as it spread. Heat pushed against Adi's face; sweat pressed her shirt uncomfortably against her back, and still, she did not move until she forced her hands together in a solid, distinct motion.
Her magic caused all the flames to condense into one rolling pod of heat which then dissipated into nothing, and Adi was left alone and in the dark in front of the tree's charred skeleton.
Still, she felt off. Wrong. Magic was supposed to make her feel better, not worse, so why did it feel like her insides were trying to swallow her whole? Freedom was supposed to make her feel alive, not trapped, so why did it feel like the forest was closing in on her with every breath she took?
A guttural, frustrated cry of aggression left her lips. Adi thrust her hand forward and, in a column of violet smoke, conjured a shadow, the blank outline of an unidentified person for her to hurt as she pleased.
This wasn't for Pan. It wasn't to make her more intelligent, or a better fighter, or to increase her pain tolerance, or whatever the point of making her fight those shadows was.
As Adi lunged for it with all the rage she contained simmering just barely beneath her skin, a knife in one hand and magic in the other, she knew. None of this was anger at Pan.
It was anger at herself.
this chapter is a little messy, but then again it makes sense because adi is a mess as well (as am I, but that's beside the point). anyway, sorry this chapter is a little dull but the next will be a lot more exciting and I can't wait to write it!